Keep or Trade-in Your Car

Answer:

I had a client, the day before court, come in and tell me a story about what they did to try to avoid bankruptcy. They had a nice, newer vehicle, something that didn’t get the best gas mileage, and what they did is they went and took it to the dealership and traded it in for a less expensive vehicle, or maybe an equal valued vehicle, but it was supposed to get better gas mileage and somehow that was going to get them out of financial trouble. I’ve never seen that happen.What you need to do, if you’re even considering that, is you need to put a pencil to it, as my father told me. You need to sit down and write out the pros and cons of doing it and how much the costs are involved. Frankly, by the time you deal with the dealership, you’re probably losing money. I can almost guarantee you that you’re losing money by going and doing that, and you’re not going to make up for it in the amount of gas you save. We’re not living in France, for example, where gas is $8 a gallon. It’s actually relatively cheap here. If you don’t know how to do the math, please come in, make an appointment for a free consultation and I’ll figure it out with you and show you exactly what the pros and cons of that particular move would be.